Mr. Jim Breslin:

This is the point I am coming to. Deputy Lynch has written to the HSE to say that the selection process around that could benefit from it being more independent. In particular, the HSE's attention has been drawn to a practice that has developed, and one that I am very aware of, in the child welfare area where an external party to the HSE, somebody of objective standing who stands apart from the HSE - a professor in a university, not an employee of the HSE - selects from a panel of people who might undertake the review. There is the occasion where members of that panel have worked in the HSE because that is by far the biggest provider of health services but a studied eye is given to the composition of the panel, to ensure that it has clear independent status to it. We think this is an area, and the HSE is working with us and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs to try to develop a methodology that in the future would not lead to the kind of the concerns that members at the committee here have expressed, and we will have that.